


A Wolf at the Door

by Namarie



Category: In Plain Sight
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 10:45:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2649149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Namarie/pseuds/Namarie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While guarding a witness, Mary and Marshall encounter a situation neither of them would have ever expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Wolf at the Door

_Mary. Wake up. Our witness has flown the coop._

“Mm.” Mary rolled over toward Marshall's voice, eyes still closed. “What'd you say?”

 _I said, our witness is gone. Vamoosed. Hit the road._ He paused for a second, and she began to notice that there was something weird about the way he was talking. _And, uh ... something else happened, too._

“He's gone, and something else happened?” Mary sat up. “Don't tell me it's worse than--” She stopped, having finally looked toward Marshall. There was no one there – except a large, brownish-gray... That had to be a wolf. She bit back an exclamation, staying perfectly still.

 _You see?_ came Marshall's voice. _I'd like to think this qualifies as pretty bad._

Breathing as quietly as she could, Mary leaned toward the nightstand where her weapon was lying. If she could just reach it without startling this animal... How the hell did a wolf get into my motel room?

The wolf seemed to be watching her closely. When her hand began to reach toward the nightstand, it backed up. _Whoa, Mary, I'm unarmed – well, technically speaking, anyway. Don't shoot!_

Abruptly, Mary realized that although she could still hear her partner's voice without seeing him, it sounded like it was coming from-- no. That was impossible. She squinted, and pushed her hair out of her face. The wolf was still watching her, meeting her eyes in a way that was oddly familiar.

_“Marshall?!”_

The wolf nodded. _Yep. Believe it or not ... but I'd really prefer if you believed it, since otherwise you'll probably shoot at me, and I'll end up running into my room to hide under the bed._

Her mouth dropped open. “You ... you're a wolf.”

 _I noticed,_ he said dryly. _And meanwhile, our witness is still missing, and I'm kinda out of commission, so if you wanted to call Stan and check Roger's room for clues..._

“I--” She shook her head and tried again. “I-- You weren't a wolf yesterday.”

There was what sounded like a sigh in her head. _Excellent observation skills, as always._ The wolf – Marshall – sat down. _It happened this morning after I heard a noise from Roger's room and got up to check on him._

Mary took a deep breath. This was just too impossible to even begin to deal with. “Okay,” she said, mostly to herself. “I'm-- I'm gonna go check on Roger.” She stood up and picked up her weapon, looking at the wolf uneasily the whole time. “You just ... stay.”

 _Very funny._ But he just watched her as she left the room.

The door to Roger's room was closed. Mary knocked. “Hey, good morning, Roger. You okay in there?”

There was no response. She knocked again, louder. “Roger, it's Mary. I need to talk to you.”

_He's not there, I already told you._

Mary jumped and then sighed, looking over her shoulder at Marshall (was it actually him?). “I thought I told you to stay.”

He looked at her out of eyes that were too intelligent and familiar to be anyone else. _Yeah, well, I'm not a dog – but I do have a rather keen sense of smell at the moment, and I can tell you he's not in there._

“Uh huh.” Mary turned back toward the door. “This is too weird,” she muttered.

 _Oh, I'm sure it's terribly weird for you,_ Marshall said, heavy sarcasm in his voice. Or whatever it was.

Shaking her head again, she tried the door. It was unlocked. “Roger, I'm opening the door, so you better be decent!”

Pushing it open, Mary saw that the room was dark, and the closet door revealed an empty interior. The covers on the bed were thrown back, and there was no sign of Roger anywhere. “Damn,” she breathed, opening her cell phone.

 _Told you so,_ Marshall put in as she dialed Stan. Out of the corner of her eye, Mary thought his tail might be wagging slightly, but she was not going to look to be sure.

As soon as she finished reporting the situation (leaving out the apparent transformation of her partner), and accepting their boss' pointed remarks about letting a witness leave without either of them noticing until he was already gone, Mary put her phone away and sighed again. “So what, was it the full moon last night or something?” she said, turning back to the wolf in the hallway.

 _No, the full moon was last week,_ he said.

“Why am I not surprised that you know that?”

 _And I'm almost positive I'm not a werewolf,_ Marshall continued, ignoring this, _not that I was planning to bite you anyway._

“Good.” Mary stared at him for a moment, and then turned back toward the deserted room in front of her. “I'm carrying on a conversation with a wolf. Hey, how are we even talking?” She looked at him again, waiting to see what he would come up with.

 _That, I really don't know._ He blinked, and his ears twitched forward. _But I would guess it's some kind of telepathy that I'm sending and you're receiving._

She laughed once, incredulous. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

As she was about to step forward into the room, Marshall stood and said sharply, _Wait – I don't think it's a good idea for you to go in there._

“What do you mean? There's no one in there, you said so yourself.” She put her hand to her holster. “Unless your keen nose has picked up something else?”

 _Not exactly,_ he said, moving closer and peering into the room. _I just have a really bad feeling about you going in there._

Mary looked down at her partner, trying not to focus on the fact that he was currently half her height and covered in fur. “Well, if Stan gets here and we haven't even processed Roger's room yet, he's going to be a little confused. And he's going to be even more confused when he sees you, since I'm still really confused – so I'm gonna see what I can find in here, unless you have something more definite to tell me.”

 _Okay,_ Marshall said, sounding uneasy. He looked up at her. _Just ... be careful, all right?_

She shrugged. “When am I not?”

Marshall made no reply, and Mary took a step forward through the doorway. Before she made it another step, she felt a strange tingling sensation begin to spread all over her body. Oh... That cannot be good, was her last thought before she fell to the ground.

“Mary! Oh, great!”

Through a momentary daze, Mary heard her partner's exclamation. She struggled to get up, and found to her surprise that her clothes no longer seemed to fit and in fact were making it harder to stand. When she finally extricated herself, she realized in horror exactly why: she was now standing on four legs, in the body of a wolf. Her clothes and gun were in a pile under her.

 _Oh my God. Marshall! Look what happened!_ She ran over to the doorway and into the hall.

Marshall, clearly now human, stuck his head out of his room and stared at her. “Ah... See, I told you I had a bad feeling about you going in there.”

Mary almost growled, but stopped herself in time. _Are you just going to stand there and say 'I told you so' or help me get my clothes out of Roger's room?_

“Um, hold on a minute.” He looked embarrassed. “I have to finish getting dressed first.” He disappeared inside his room.

 _You mean, when I went inside the room, you changed back,_ Mary said, _and you were naked?_

She had no trouble hearing his response through the closed door. “Well, yeah. When I first changed this morning, I had to take my clothes back in here.”

Briefly imagining these scenarios, Mary felt some amusement, which dissipated when she turned around to look at her clothes in the room. _So, if someone who's human goes in there, they turn into a wolf,_ she mused, _but then if someone else goes in, the first person changes back._ She sighed. _This sucks._

“That about sums it up,” Marshall said, opening his door and coming to stand next to her. Looking up at him, Mary found that her vision was now very different: she could no longer see colors, and she tended to focus more on movement than objects that weren't moving. And Marshall had definitely been right to point out the increase in sense of smell. She could tell immediately that the clothes he was wearing had been washed before he put them on, and also that he hadn't showered yet.

He continued to look at her intently, so she stared right back. _What? I mean, besides the obvious._

“It's just ... you look totally different, of course,” he told her, “but still somehow like yourself.”

Mary sighed again, and turned to look toward Roger's room. _Yeah, you looked that way, too._ She walked inside – experiencing no tingling sensation this time – and started to push her clothes and gun out into the hall. _It's a good thing it's so damn early,_ she muttered, _or the other guests in this fine establishment would be having one hell of a show._

“Speaking of which,” Marshall said, “when is Stan getting here?”

 _He said he'd coordinate with the locals to try to stop Roger before he gets too far, and then it'd be about fifteen minutes,_ she replied. _That was about three minutes ago, I'd say._ By this point, she'd managed to get all of her belongings out of the room, so she stopped and glared at her partner. _You gonna help me now or what?_

He blinked. “Sure. I just assumed you wouldn't want me touching your clothes, especially the--”

 _Okay, I'll take most of the clothes,_ Mary cut in, seeing his point. _You can take what I don't._ She grabbed as much as she could in her mouth – doing her best to ignore the unpleasant fabric tastes – and carried them to her room. Marshall followed, carrying her holster and shirt and putting them on her bed.

 _Thanks._ Mary sat down. It was amazing, and not exactly pleasant, what she could smell in this motel room. It had seemed clean to her yesterday.

“So I guess we need to see what answers, if any, can be found in our witness' room,” Marshall said. He stood up from the chair by her bed.

Mary stood as well. _And where the hell do you think you're going?_

“To his room,” he answered, confused.

_You do know that'll turn you into a wolf again, right?_

“Yes, we've established this.”

 _Well, then, don't be a moron,_ Mary said briskly, pushing past him into the hall. _I'll go in and see what I can find, and then we don't have to deal with more transformations for the time being._

“Hey, you just got hair on my jeans!” Marshall's voice followed her across the hall.

 _Yeah, get over it,_ she called back, already distracted by what she was finding in the room. Even without being able to see as well as she would have preferred, she was able to tell that Roger had left in a hurry (that much had already been evident), and that he had been terrified. Guess that whole smelling fear thing really does happen, she thought. There was also some very strange scent near the doorway that she could not identify.

“Find anything interesting?” Marshall asked, coming to lean against the doorway. His posture was relaxed, but she could tell he was keyed up.

 _He was afraid when he left,_ she reported. _And there's something weird here, on the wall – at about the point where I fell when I first came in here._ She sniffed around it again, but could only discern that whatever it was made her want to sneeze.

Marshall shook his head and gave what might have been a laugh.

_What?_

“Nothing. Just, you were right,” he said. “It is really, really weird watching one's partner when one's parter is a wolf.”

She nodded. _My turn to say I told you so,_ she said, but not with much enthusiasm.

“Hey,” Marshall said suddenly, breaking the gloomy silence. “I've got an idea.”

_All right._

“What if you come out into the hall, and then we both go inside at the same time?”

Mary stood up. She tried to fight the impulse to wag her tail as she considered. _It could work. What the hell, let's give it a shot._

They stood next to each other in the hallway, and Mary was about to step forward when he said, “Wait.”

 _Now what?_ She looked up at him, exasperated.

“You might want to have your clothes ready.”

 _Oh._ She sighed. _But I just went to all that effort moving them back to my room!_

“Aw, quit your whining,” Marshall said, not bothering to hide a smile. “I could get it for you, if you ask nicely.”

_Hey, you know what you said earlier, about not biting? I never said anything like that._

He raised his hands and took a step back. “Fine. It was just a thought, She-wolf.”

_Okay, whatever, please go get my shirt. It'll do by itself. And don't touch anything else in there!_

Marshall shot her an offended look as he went to do her bidding. “Like I would.”

He returned in seconds with the shirt she had slept in last night, and tossed it into their absent witness' room. “Shall we?”

_All right, on the count of three._

On three, they stepped forward together into the room. They made it slightly farther than Mary thought she'd gone the first time before she felt something blocking her, and then suddenly she was being thrown backwards, out of the room. She landed in a heap against the far wall. “Ow.”

“Here.” She felt fabric dropped onto her back, and looked up to see Marshall standing over her and studiously looking away.

Quickly, she stood up, grimacing a little at the bruises she could already feel forming, and pulled on the shirt. Then she headed back into her room and closed the door. “It's all clear!”

She heard a door opening further down the hallway, and Marshall saying something reassuring to whoever it was. As soon as she was mostly clothed, she rejoined him in the hall. “Guess it worked.”

“Yeah, guess it did,” he replied.

“Did you get ... thrown out of there, too?”

“I did.”

She winced in sympathy. “Mm. And then you went back into the room to get my shirt.”

“Yep.”

She hit him on the shoulder. “That was stupid – you could've turned right back into a wolf again!”

“Ow!” He rubbed his shoulder and glared. “But I didn't, did I?”

Just then, her cell phone rang from on top of her bed. “That's gotta be Stan. Be right back.”

Mary listened to Stan's progress report, sighing with relief when he said they'd found Roger and then not so relieved when she was informed that he was en route to the hospital. Apparently, he had crashed into a ditch not two miles from the motel. “Is he all right?”

“He's going to be fine,” Stan said. “A few cuts and bruises and what looks like a broken wrist, but that's it.”

“Well, that's good.” Mary ran a hand through her hair, and said, “We'll be there as soon as we can.”

Stan stopped her before she disconnected. “Oh, uh, Mary?”

“Yeah?”

“Roger was saying some kind of crazy stuff when he was found, apparently.”

She smiled wryly, as Marshall came into her room. “Oh yeah? What kind of crazy stuff?” He often sounded crazy...

“The officers who found him said he was all worried that the trap he had set in his room would hit his friends instead of this guy who's after him, and then they'd never be human again, with the spell he cast.” Stan's voice betrayed his complete bewilderment. “But uh, you and Marshall are okay, right? You didn't spring any magical traps?”

Biting back a laugh, she said. “Oh, yeah. We're totally fine. As human as we ever were.” Repeating that they'd see him at the hospital, she ended the call.

Marshall raised an eyebrow. “Did he say 'spell'?”

“That's what I heard, yeah.”

He opened his mouth, and then just sighed. “Well, I guess this means Roger wasn't completely making it up when he kept going on about the mysterious guy who's trying to find him.”

“You're right,” Mary said. She glanced at Marshall. “Doesn't mean we're going to tell him about this whole thing, though, does it?”

“Definitely not.” He frowned. “Besides, we broke his spell.”

“Good thing, too,” Mary said, patting him on the arm. “I don't think pet stores sell wolf food, and I wasn't going to start raising rabbits for you.”

“For your information, I'm sure I would've been fine hunting for myself,” Marshall replied in a dignified tone. “And I'm fairly certain you would have as well.”

“Maybe so. But meanwhile, I'd like to hunt myself a shower and then some coffee before we head over to the hospital. I'm really looking forward to hearing what kind of explanation Roger has for us.”

At her tone, Mary saw an answering expression, half-amused, half-angry, in her partner's eyes. She was reminded briefly of the wolf he'd been. “Yeah. Me, too.”

~

**Author's Note:**

> So, uh, if you've read my stories for other fandoms, you may have started to notice that I have a thing for this kind of plotline. *shrug* Anyway.  
> Thanks to K for her beta. Originally posted at my LJ in 2009.


End file.
